Life — December 31, 1914 — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

De Morgan “Te like De Morgan's latest work,” I told the pretty fiction clerk, And took the book. A cent a day Is all that I was asked to pay. The snows have gone, the spring has fled, For months and months I’ve read and read. I now am deep in hopeless debt And I have hardly started yet. To read his “Once upon a time There lived a lad”, required a dime. His side remarks about a fence In Kensal Green cost fifteen cents. His brief description of a collar, It set me back at least a dollar. He took a notion to explain— I had to pawn my watch and chain. I give a week to read his “ gassing” (How rich it is!) on wagons passing, And while I skim his drollery On tea and toast, a month goes by. A bankrupt I shall soon become From trailing him through Christen- dom ; But that’s of no concern, indeed, For then I'll have more time to read. L. H. Robbins. A “War Prayer” by Twain Unrestisnep Articue sy Autitox Reap ix St, Louts. Sr. Louis, Dec. 6—An unpublished article by Mark Twain, called “The War Prayer”, was recalled by Dr. Henry Neuman, leader of the Ethical Culture Society in Brooklyn, this morning in his address on “Mark Twain” before the Ethical Society of St. Louis. The story tells how a regiment on its way to the front assembles at a church and prays for victory. When the prayer is concluded a white-robed stranger en- ters to say he has been sent from “On High” with a message that the petition will be answered if the men care to re- peat it after understanding its full im- port. Their prayer, he tells them, asks for more than they scem to realize Hence he bids them listen while he re- peats aloud these unspoken implications of their desire: “O Lord, we go forth to smite the foc. Help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of ; help us to wring the hearts of fF unofiending widows with un- availing grief. For our sakes, who adore thee, Lord, blast their steps, water their way with their tears.” Because he was told that this article would be regarded as sacrilegious, Mark Twain, who, according to Dr. Neuman, was a free thinker, did not print it —From the New York Times. Coprright by Path, New Yor AMERICA— ON GUARD! HIS is something every American should look squarely T in the face. In just what condition are our defenses? Do you know? Does any one know? Yes, General Wotherspoon knows. When retiring as Chief of Staff the other day he said: ‘‘There are only 45,968 soldiers available for the mobile army within the United States; the coast artillery is short 13,018 men; the regular army is lacking in field guns and ammunition."" THEODORE ROOSEVELT in a splendidly practical, powerful and suggestive article on this very subject points out precisely what we really need to do right now. Every American owes it to himself to read this article in Gverybodys@agazine for JANUARY